Just because we see few postings in these anonymous forums  and blog comments does not mean maoists are hated. we all know what the ktm-centric main stream media, political pundits and to some extent, participants of such online discussions predicted and what happened after the election. Bottom line is that they do have a very strong popular support.  True maoist, by virtue of being communist are not bad people but they executed their 10yrs long people's war (in their words) in very unique ways - use of excessive force, violence, intimidation against those who disagreed with them and got a unique success, including their success in the recent election to everybody's surprise..I think this is what Prachanda is referring to when we says they did miracle. While it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the people who have been direct victim of this war to forget, for rest of us, i think we should forget and move on considering they were in war for a greater cause and horrible things happened in war, like all other wars. I hope maoist leadership will come out and address the conflict victims - apologize, compensate and promise to reform their actions in the coming days and build a confidence. We will have to judge the maoists from their actions and behavior from here on. While skepticism is high, I'm also hopeful that a new foundation for a peaceful and prosperous Nepal over the long-term, has been laid-out, even though, that road to peace and prosperity is likely to experience a lot of bumps in the near-term. As per the eduction, I think maoist leadership team is well educated and more importantly, its not the academic degree that matters the most, but the vision, honesty and political will-power. There are plenty of academic geniouses outside of maoist party that they can utilize, if they want to. Lets give them the benefit of doubt and wait and see...